What Does Winning Mean? A Classroom Experiment

This course will help you be a better negotiator. Unlike many negotiation courses, we develop a framework for analyzing and shaping negotiations. This framework will allow you to make principled arguments that persuade others. It will allow you to see beneath the surface of apparent conflicts to uncover the underlying interests. You will leave the course better able to predict, interpret, and shape the behavior of those you face in competitive situations.
In this course, you will have several opportunities to negotiate with other students using case studies based on common situations in business and in life. You can get feedback on your performance and compare what you did to how others approached the same scenario. The cases also provide a setting to discuss a wide-ranging set of topics including preparing for a negotiation, making ultimatums, avoiding regret, expanding the pie, and dealing with someone who has a very different perspective on the world. Advanced topics include negotiating when you have no power, negotiating over email, and the role of gender differences in negotiation. To close out the course, we will hear insights from three negotiation experts: Linda Babcock, Herb Cohen, and John McCall MacBain. Enjoy.

審閱

MC

Professor Nalebuff does an excellent job of keeping the student engaged through his own examples of negotiations as well as guest speakers. I've learned so much from the Intro course to use at work.

RC

Sep 08, 2015

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

A superb introduction to negotiation from game theory point of view, which itself is a fascinating subject and taught by Barry nelbuff, a brilliantly simple teacher. read his books and you'll know.

從本節課中

Advanced Topics

This module is a collection of short lessons. We cover everything from negotiating when you have no power to negotiating over email. There is a test-taking detour, showing how the game theory approach we use in negotiation can help you (or your kids) do better on standardized tests. I end with some key lessons I learned from a taxi ride that went the wrong way.

教學方

Barry Nalebuff

腳本

Greetings. Welcome. I'm and we're gonna do a short experiment on competition today. As you may know, each year when there's an Olympics, the host country gets to introduce a new sport. And it seems to me that a sport that's been missing from the Olympics for many years is thumb wrestling. >> Beer pong. >> Beer pong, perhaps, as well. And so I thought we would have an experiment with thumb wrestling. Are any of you unfamiliar with thumb wrestling? You don't know what thumb wrestling is, but you do sir. So can we do a quick demonstration for your colleagues? Here we go. So you go like this, and it's one, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war. And then it's- >> [LAUGH] >> And you are? >> Rami. >> So Rami has just won spectacularly. So we have three rules for this experiment. One is that each pin, each victory is worth a dollar. You will have 20 seconds to get as many pins or victories as you can. And during this time, there is no speaking, okay? And the experiment is real, and by that I mean I will be paying the points that are received. And while I'm generous, I'm not that generous. And what I mean by that is I will pick one person at random to get paid. And the person who will get paid is the one whose birthday is closest to mine. What's my birthday? Well, you'll find out. So, can I ask you to pair up, the two of you, two of you, two of you. Yes, what's the question? >> What if you're left handed? [LAUGH] >> Oh you know, that's life is tough. >> [LAUGH] >> The two of you. And then if you would go with the person on the row back. That is, you can either move or go right over the boundary with Daiu. So just hold on for a second. So the two of you, the two of you. On your mark, get set, and go. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five one thousand. >> [LAUGH] >> [INAUDIBLE] >> [LAUGH] >> Hey, hey, hey, hey. Whoa, whoa. We're done, we're done, we're done. >> [CROSSTALK] >> My friends in the back. We're done. >> [CROSSTALK] >> We're done. >> [LAUGH] >> Oh my goodness. >> Okay, so that was great. >> [LAUGH] >> And we're going to hold on for a moment before doing the analysis. I thought perhaps we might raise the stakes a little bit and introduce you to Dalian King, one of my colleagues. He is Canadian, and in his youth, he was a power lifting champion. And this one we'll do for $2 a pin, and it will be arm wrestling, rather than thumb wrestling. So, let me introduce you to Dalian King. And need a volunteer against Dalian. So I think you'd be a fine volunteer, sir. >> Is that okay? >> [APPLAUSE] [LAUGH] >> Hi, my name's Dalian. All right, he's got a firm handshake, this could be bad. [CROSSTALK] >> I could. All right, couple of ground rules first. Last thing I want to do is get hurt, or hurt you, or anything like that. So, let's like, at least start off, not full power. And, now, if you think I'm like tricking you or something, just think about my incentives here. My incentives are not to embarrass you or hurt you. No one would be proud of me if you went 50%, and I went slam [SOUND], right? So understand my incentives, in other words trust me. Do you? >> I do. >> Okay, good. Again, let's go easy. This could end badly. All right? [LAUGH] All right. >> [LAUGH] >> So, relax first of all. [LAUGH] Relax. We're going 50%. Now, I'm gonna let you win. >> Sorry? >> All right, do the countdown. >> We only have 20 seconds? >> We have 20 seconds. Let's take him for all the money he's got. >> So three, two, one, now. [NOISE] >> Let me get one. You okay? >> There we go. >> So. >> Faster. Relax! Relax! [LAUGH] We're getting money here. Faster, faster, faster! [LAUGH] >> This is excellent. >> Okay. >> Thank you. We're done. >> So that's $2 each? >> Yeah. [LAUGH] Barry. >> That depends on your birthday. >> Oh, yeah. May 17th. We'll find out. >> August 3. >> August 3, that could be close. Yes, thank you. First, let's see for a moment how many of you had zero victories. >> I had a champion with me. >> A champion victory. How many had one? Two? Anybody have more than two? >> This guy did. >> So, what were your numbers? >> Five. >> Five? >> We had 80 each. >> 80 each. Okay. And? >> Three. >> Three, okay, so can you guess what it was that the folks over here did that was a little different? >> Yeah [CROSSTALK] >> We didn't even talk about it, we didn't say a word. We just kind of figured it out somehow [INAUDIBLE] >> And how was it that they figured it out? >> They are smarter. >> [LAUGH] >> They are greedy. >> They are greedy. And you're not? >> [INAUDIBLE] [CROSSTALK] >> It's not fair. >> It is fair. >> What's not fair? >> What is fair? Well, it's kind of against the spirit of the game. >> And what was the game? >> Thumb wrestling. >> Was that really the game? >> No. >> What was the real game? [CROSSTALK] >> Our incentive to earn a lot of money. >> Right, and in particular, take my money. And so, now the question is, how can you achieve that without speaking to each other? So how did you begin? >> Well, first of all, my incentive was to have one more than take your wife. >> Sure. >> So, yeah, how we started that I took advantage that she never played this game. I exploited that, and I win every time. >> [LAUGH] He's being honest. >> It was five to zero? >> Well, five. I don't know if there were five. Two were before you even started the game. >> I see. >> [LAUGH] >> [CROSSTALK] Instead of. >> High cruelty. >> So it's probably three to zero. >> Well, I would count five, so I can get lots of more money. >> Okay. And how did you all start? >> I let him win a bunch. We didn't talk at all, and so I just put my thumb there, and he did this, and he saw that I wasn't resisting, so he started tapping. And then he moved his thumb, and then I started tapping, and we figured out, let's get five at a time. We just went five at a time. We didn't say a word, we just went five at a time. We were very happy to take Barry's money if our birthdays work out. >> So my birthday is July 11, which is darn close to August 3 if you ask me. Are there any other July birthdays in here? When is yours? >> July 14th. >> July 14th, I love you, thank you. And how many did you get? >> That did not work out well. >> What is the answer? >> Zero. >> Zero. [LAUGH] Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you so much. >> I came specifically for this reason. >> Yes, I appreciate that. So I could have been on the hook for a lot, but I was saved. And let's talk about what are some of the big lessons that you'd want to walk away from this. >> One of the things that I noticed with him, so he was very tense. Notice one of the first thing, I try to make some common ground here. Look, we don't want to hurt each other. Let's not hurt ourselves physically. Let's not hurt each other's egos. Let's tone it down a notch. Nobody wants to go to war here. So I was trying to say, we have some common ground. Even if we're competing on some level, there's many levels that we can cooperate. But notice I let him win the first to gain trust a little bit. But it didn't kinda work. In two ways it failed. The first time I let him win, he resisted a little bit. And it was kinda like maybe he was confused, why is Dalian letting me win? This is what we call a quick version of the fixed pie bias. The notion that if you want something, it must be something that I don't want. I don't know what you're up to here, but you're claiming something, and so that's got to come out of my pocket. And sometimes that is true. When you're haggling purely over price, sometimes your gain is my loss. But the bias is thinking that everything is like that. And thinking that many more pies are fixed than they are. And the other thing I tried to leverage was, finally, he was happy to win, but he wasn't letting me do it. So I had to keep cooperating a few times, okay, win, win, win. You see what I'm trying to do here. And then we just had to win as quickly as possible. There was one point where I was like, relax even more. Let's do it faster. Sometime during the SALT treaty, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks? The SALT talks, when the Soviets and the Americans were trying to reduce nuclear warheads and inter-ballistic missiles. It was a sad comment that one of the delegates came back from the Soviet Union and said every time the Russians want something, we have to go back to DC and figure out why we don't want that. And that's the fixed pie bias. There's a lot of things in common. Even when you're competing, not always but more often than you think, there's kind of ways to cooperate. Take as much money from him as possible. >> So, again, to sum up, we have a perspective that what you want to do is win, beat others, as opposed to do well for yourself. And I think the ultimate expression of this was Gore Vidal who said, it's not enough to succeed, others must fail. And here, your ability to succeed was not at all about beating others. It was about taking money from me. Moreover, you might have this great mismatch. Where you have somebody who's inexperienced, somebody who knows a little bit more about what they're doing. And the reality is that you can win, you can win 3-0 or maybe 5-0, but you're not going to win 40 or 80 unless the two of you figure out how to cooperate. And so, even though you could win, the fact is that your colleague has enough ability to slow you down to make that win small. And therefore you still need the other person. Similarly, you need the cooperation for sure. It doesn't count, by the way, if you get 20 to 0. Because then you're counting on the other person to share with you, and maybe they won't. The last thing I'd add is that when the two of you were doing the arm wrestling, Dalian was really having to cheat. Because he was having to tell you, imagine how he would have been able to communicate. It wasn't just enough that he let you win, he had to say, darn it. >> It was easier in the thumb wrestling. Our egos were less at stake, and there was less to be lost. Right, I was less afraid of him hurting me, but I wanted to talk cuz he was so kind of tense and primed up, I thought. Somebody's gonna pull a muscle if we don't back off. One of the things we talk about this fixed pie, again, what he and I did was what we call expanding the pie, creating value. You're not expanding the pie just for efficiency's sake. We did a good thing not because we added up to 160, but I care about my piece of pie, not necessarily the size of the pie, but my piece. But often the best way to get a big piece of pie for yourself, if you only care about your own outcomes, the best way to get a big piece of pie is by fighting over a big pie. If you want a piece this big, it's much, if I have to fight for him, the pie's only this big, I'm gonna really have to fight tooth and nail. Because, as Barry said, he has power to resist. It's not in my interest to give him 80 wins. That doesn't make me feel good. In fact it hurts me. It takes away time for me to get wins. But it's not my number one goal is to stop him. My number one goal is to help myself, and vice versa. His number one goal is to help himself, not necessarily to stop me. And, so that's how we trade. Let's just both get our number one goals to win a lot. And let's not bother trying to be defensive, and keeping the other person from winning. And so we each get a big piece of pie because we expanded it. So we expanded the pie not kumbaya, but even a selfish person would realize if I expand the pie first, I'm probably likely to be left better off. >> So that's it for this part of it. But if you have any questions we should take them now, and then we can work on other topics. >> Actually, I learned a now, very important lesson from our experience. Usually, when we negotiate, we forget what it's about. We forget now that it's about taking your money. We start really competing. It becomes personal, and this has happened even, in professional litigation. Especially with us in the studio [INAUDIBLE]. It becomes about personalities, and people forget what is this about? >> Is this about peace and saving people's lives, not one-upping one another. >> It's not about, I want to score one. You want to score one and this competition. But [INAUDIBLE] >> And even when there's not some outside interest, if we're just negotiating with each other. Another way you can do that kind of trade is realize what are your priorities. Like, issue A is a number one priority for you. Me too, we're just gonna fight about that. Issue B is not even in my top three, but it's number two for you. That might be an issue where we trade. You want that so much I'm going to give that to you, and I'll get a win later. I'll get a win when it's important to me, and you get a win when it's important to you. In other words, you don't have to have some outside person funding the cooperation. This is just a basically theory of making straight trade-offs, making smart trade-offs with each other, being efficient. When do you give and why? You find, look, I can help you and you can help me. Let's work it out. >> Were there other questions or comments over here? Okay, thank you. >> 80 bucks, good job.